Category Archives: Doctor Who

The net is dark and full of spoilers! This article discusses the Doctor Who episode “Hell Bent,” as well as other events in season 9.

It’s not that they didn’t do what I was hoping they would do. It’s that they really didn’t do anything at all. “Hell Bent” squandered what the season had established, resulting in a bland and confusing finale that flattered neither the Doctor nor Clara.

This review discusses incidents which occur in the Doctor Who episodes “Face the Raven” and “Heaven Sent.”

Steven Moffat is poised to cap an already excellent season with a terrific three-part finale, two of which have now aired. A lot happened in those two episodes, and a lot more is promised for the final one, “Hell Bent,” scheduled for this Saturday, Dec. 5 on BBC America.

It’s the opening line of Doctor Who’s episode “Sleep No More,” and everyone should totally heed it: turn it off, delete it from your DVR, and find yourself a better story to watch. Or get a snack. Or go to bed. Just don’t put yourself through this nightmare of an episode.

The following contains spoilers. I’m providing them as a public service to save you from having to watch this story.

Osgood is certainly a beloved character. However, her most endearing quality should also categorically exclude her from becoming a regular: she’s a Mary Sue. Granted, she hasn’t committed the cardinal sin of Mary Sues by impossibly, single-handedly saving the day despite being surrounded by a plethora of more qualified people, but she’s a Mary Sue nevertheless.

This week, “The Zygon Invasion” revealed the shapeshifting Zygons, galactic refugees since their world was destroyed, have been secretly welcomed into the Earth population. After a rather unique peace treaty was hammered out after “Day of the Doctor,” UNIT allowed 20 million Zygons to masquerade as humans and live out their lives here. The problem is a small minority of young Zygon extremists who object to having to live as humans. They demand they be able to live fully

In “The Woman Who Lived” this week on Doctor Who, the long-lived Ashildr explained how she gave up having children because she grew tired of burying them. Specifically, she lost three small children to the Black Death in the 14th century. The reality of most of history, however, is that people died all the time, and children died more often than most. Today, we have the good fortune to be able to say it’s a tragedy when a parent must

As humans, we count our age in years and measure cultural change in decades. Human civilization of any sort has existed a mere 5000 years. The species itself is 200,000 years old, give or take. Gallifreyan civilization, on the other hand, can be measured in billions of years. They were building transmats before our evolutionary ancestors crawled from the primordial ooze. They can crush stars into black holes and contain them as power sources. And, of course, they’ve mastered time

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly… timey-wimey… stuff.” – The Doctor, “Blink” There’s two ways of writing time travel fiction. The first is to rigorously uphold exact laws. The second approach to time travel is, well, timey-wimey. Play fast and loose with the concept of rules but use the technology primarily to create plot rather than solve it. Doctor Who falls solidly

The twelfth incarnation of the Doctor is the most abrasive we’ve seen in a long time. That’s why he has Clara, his “carer,” meaning she cares so he won’t have to. But occasionally even he realizes he’s being overly callous, so he and Clara have put together some sensitivity flash cards to flip through when he’s at a loss for a kind word. “It was my fault. I should have known you didn’t live in Aberdeen.” – from “Under the

Here there be spoilers! This post contains revelations from the Doctor Who season 9 opener, “The Magician’s Apprentice,” which can be watched for free on YouTube: “I’ve lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good. I’ve made many mistakes, and it’s about time I did something about that.” –The Doctor, “Deep Breath” Since the beginning of the new Doctor Who series in 2005, the universe has been seen through the eyes of a man haunted